Leftists and Libertarians?
I’m sure that I am not the first person to say this, but your letters page is a fun place to say things, so I’ll say it here, hoping to know whether you think I am onto something, or just on something.
It seems to me that lone wolf Libertarians and big state Leftists operate on the same erroneous presupposition. It seems that both groups think that human beings are constituted in such a way that if we just have the right societal structure around us, most folks will just behave. The difference, it seems to me, is in what each group’s idea of the right structure is, but they both think if we could achieve societal configuration A, behavior B will follow.
This is why I can’t be a Libertarian in the pure sense of the word, in spite of my strong sympathies toward many of the particular ideas they hold. As a Christian I believe we must have condition A (widespread repentance) before we can achieve societal structure B (a state of general freedom and the liberty to self-govern without undue interference).
Da or nyet?
Andrew
Andrew, yes. Or, put another way, a godly social order will be the fruit of general repentance. Repentance first, then the social structures.
A Tough One
As an elder in your church how do you/have you handled cattiness between single female members. In my mind if a woman is being catty but is married it’s an easier conversation to have with her husband. When the woman is single, however, it seems to be a more difficult problem to confront. Any helpful suggestions born out of experience?
Tim
Tim, I have never faced that particular issue, but is seems to me that I would start by having an older, wiser woman in the congregation speak to her about it. Perhaps an elder’s wife. If she is unrepentant, then I think the pastor should ask her to come in for a visit.
The Theological Ground of Limited Government
You argue that A) Jesus Christ is Lord of the nations, and therefore B) government Covid mandates (including masks, lockdowns and vaccines) should be resisted.
I have read/watched several of your blog posts/videos on the topic, and perhaps I am a bit dense, but I still don’t understand why B should follow from A. Since I agree with A and disagree with B, I’m trying to identify the points at which our reasoning diverges. It’s probably fleshed out in your books, but a blog post that outlines the chain of reasoning would be appreciated.
In particular, which of the following positions do you take?
1. The government mandates are unjustified because the true threat of Covid has been grossly exaggerated.
2. Even if Covid is every bit as bad as the authorities claim, they still have no right to impose the mandates they have proposed.
Most of the time, I think you are arguing for 1). But if that is so, why is it idolatry for Christian leaders to comply with the mandates? They have honestly concluded that Covid really is that bad. It is then a disagreement about the credibility of particular sources of evidence. Not a denial of the Lordship of Christ.
Yours in Christ,
Daniel
Daniel, thanks. This is how I approach this. I do believe that the Covid claims are exaggerated, but that is not the fundamental issue. Because civil government is under Christ, and made up of sinners, the Christian view of political systems is that the government must be limited. These limitations would apply even when the government wanted to make some practice mandatory that everybody agreed would be healthy in itself—e.g. take a brisk walk every morning.
The Old White Babies Ploy
RE “White Babies”, what better way for the wokesters to prove your point about “white” than freaking out about you saying “white”? Is the lack of self-awareness funny or sad? Hard to say. On a unrelated note, you have made the front page of one of the most prominent libertarian/ancap sites on the web, LRC:
I cant be the only secular libertarian moved by your writings. I don’t consider myself a libertarian anymore (not even a right wing one). Instead I’m a Christian who celebrates all of God’s design, including his design for civil government. My feelings towards the leviathan state are still much the same, but without the deep-seated, nagging suspicions that our fallen world needs more than Ancapistan can ever offer.
Myself and many other LRC’ers owe you a debt.
Brian
Brian, thanks much.
I didn’t need binoculars to see this particular line from this particular post was going to break out the swooning couches. I’d be more than a little incredulous to believe you didn’t see it too (not that I’m objecting or anything).
David
David, I knew it was going to get a rise, but I didn’t anticipate how high they are jumping these days.
Re: “white babies,” at least you didn’t capitalize white. Then they’d be really mad. And, honestly, what the left really wants is more white babies who are committed to dismantling whiteness. Whatever that means.
Greg
Greg, right. Wokeness is about the whitest thing ever.
Re “White Babies” of 10/21 . . . You certainly don’t need my encouragement, Pastor Wilson, but here it is anyway. Always enjoy your striving to be “suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.”
Bob
Bob, thanks very much. Swaav and deboner, that’s me.
I love your work, and I love how your polarizing statements force people to pick sides. That said, I saw people yelling about your comment about white babies, thought “huh, that does seem like an odd thing to say,” and came here to ask you about it. When I read the context (“chicks dig bad boys”) that no one was quoting online I realized what you actually meant. (For anyone who missed it, he’s not saying having white babies is superior to having a mixed-race family, he’s saying it’s more edgy.)
Anyway, thanks for your ministry, and for being willing to upset people for the right reasons. It’s a great example to us non-confrontational folks.
Ross
Ross, thanks much to whatever teacher imparted those reading comprehension skills to you
Well . . . ya know Pastor Doug, I’m white. I must have listened to a hundred of your sermons. I have my kids in Classical Christian school because of you. I once bought one of your e-books on justice to help me refute my crazy, Unitarian, religion professor’s teaching on Simone Weil. And even after reading the handful of sentences before that quote, I still can’t help but recognize I must not be your target audience because, well . . . my kids aren’t white.
Andy
Andy, oh, but you are part of my target audience. The fact that your kids aren’t white will be absolutely no protection against them getting accused of being white. So they should be able to enjoy all of this as much as we can—and maybe even more.
I ran across this frightening quote today from another renegade like you—a guy named Paul Something. “I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting; in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.”
Melody
Melody, look at you. Trying to get me into some real trouble.
A Couple Revelation Questions
Who/what do you believe the 2 witnesses were? This is one area that I just can’t understand the partial pret/postmil explanation. Who was the false prophet if Nero was the beast? Who was the second beast and when was the mark of the beast executed in history? Can I read about the historical mark of the beast somewhere or is it purely allegorical (devotion of mind and strength, etc)? I wonder about Rev 10:11 because it seems from the text to be a dividing line where the story pauses and restarts—to me it seems to be the divider between the time of Nero and the replay that was to happen much later on. This is especially confusing to me because the vaccine is starting to look an awful lot like the mark of the beast, but I don’t know who the false prophet is.
I can’t be the only one who is really confused about this. Please help.
Athus
Athus, I believe that the beast is the Roman Empire, and that the land beast and/or false prophet is the old Jerusalem under judgment. This current business looks like the mark of the beast because beasts tend to think alike.
I’m taking my family through the book of Revelations right now (and thank you for “When The Man Comes Around” as that has been quite helpful!) . . . and I have what is perhaps a dumb question, but I can’t seem to find the answer for it, so thought you may be able to point me in the right direction . . .
. . . if the book of Revelations was delivered to John via a series of visions or dreams, how is it that he wrote down or remembered everything he saw or experienced? Anybody who has had a dream knows how hard it is to remember all the minute details, yet John’s descriptions are quite precise and detailed. I’m trying to figure out if he had some kind of scribe or something who was keeping notes as John experienced the visions, if John was in some kind of half wake/half dream state, or how exactly, from a logistical standpoint, Revelations came to be.
Any thoughts on this?
Ben
Ben, yes. I think I do. The two responses that come to mind are these. First, I think that a vision should be placed in a different category than a dream. You wake up from a dream, and thirty seconds later it is all gone. A vision appears to be more vivid. And secondly, I think that John was a genius, and he remembered things better than I would.
Be the first to comment.
OK, first!
You continue to ignore this statement by Douglas Wilson:
That was from the same article where you said that quarantining the unvaccinated was prudence, which doesn’t sound very “limited”.
Also this statement, which seems to contract your claim in today’s letter:
Or this:
Or this, where on March 31 you mocked Dr. Fauci for stating that we might see 200,000 deaths (if only, by the grace of God, this had been true):
I wish, at some point, you would admit that the effects of Covid-19 the disease ended up being far more severe than what you initially thought, and thus some of the measures you initially sanctioned as acceptable…still were, regardless of political winds.
And again, from April 14:
And April 21:
Jonathan, the root of your alleged contradictions is in the context from which you’ve ripped all of these quotes. There are different vaccines mandates, and different hypothetical vaccine mandates that can be imposed by different institutions under different circumstances. Some of them are valid, some of them are questionable, and some of them are clearly unacceptable. Wilson has been writing about all of these in their various incarnations for quite some time now. It isn’t particularly hard to pull statements discussing one type of hypothetical mandate away from its context, put it next to a different statement about a different… Read more »
My first example from Pastor Wilson was, quite literally “A requirement that everyone get vaccinated”. That would appear to cover even the strictest vaccine mandate. And while the reason he posted that was a debate over Whooping Cough vaccination, he made the statement as a declarative in a post without qualifications or context and without specifying the institution.
And to be clear, Pastor Wilson has never made the distinction you claim. He has never shown any specific way in which the current vaccine mandate differs in legality from the previous blanket mandate which he allowed for, other than to refer to conspiracy theories regarding their true intentions.
Prove it. Prove everything you wrote in your comment. Cite chapter and verse, in context.
Better yet, maybe the Great Man himself will explain once and for all why he gets to have it both ways.
Justin, I don’t think that is a fair evaluation. I have read every word Pr. Wilson has written about Covid, and for most of that time he maintained that the government had broad powers to mandate public health interventions. He just holds that for various reasons it is illegitimate right now due to a variety of special pleadings. But now he is saying it is a fundamental theological/political thing… Read especially his response to Brad Littlejohn’s piece about McArthur where he says (to paraphrase) Brad is exactly right on the political theology, but he is an alarmist nanny stater so… Read more »
Jonathan, Thanks for pulling all of these up. You will be accused of spamming the board, but these quotes are directly relevant to Pr. Wilson’s answer to Tim and Pr. Wilson’s position really is incoherent. I disagree with a lot of what the magistrates have done in response to Covid, I have been against basically every NPI; though I recognize that governments had very difficult decisions to make. But the idea that the government doesn’t have the authority to take measures (even imprudent ones) in defense of public health due to some sort of biblical sphere sovereignty is absurd. I… Read more »
Demo, whatever 2021 Pastor Wilson has to say, March 2020 Pastor Wilson would absolutely agree with you:
I would like to know why Wilson believes this vaccine mandate is different from the various state vaccine mandates that are in affect now.
I imagine the majority of his parishioners’ children don’t attend public school. Be that as it may, here is Idaho’s Vaccine Mandate for School Children:
https://publicdocuments.dhw.idaho.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=4926&dbid=0&repo=PUBLIC-DOCUMENTS&searchid=b3d2e6c6-2274-4842-b068-3f66a785a61c
I’m not familiar with your NPI reference. If you are referencing the National Provider Identifier number, would you please explain why you are against them?
NPI is non-pharmaceutical interventions. Basically masks, distance requirements, bans/restrictions on gatherings, etc. I prefer a government that strongly weights individual freedom and takes even fairly large risks in stride. But I understand that I am a small part of a political process that institutes to make these sorts of policy determinations. This certainly isn’t the first time, nor the most egregious case, where the polity has very different policy prescriptions from my preferences. Also, you should really knock off the troll bit. Our host has graciously allowed you to post in a space he maintains which gives you access to… Read more »
I can agree with you to point.
Wilson’s shtick is that of a tough theology that bites guy. He loves to throw punches. Some of them even below the belt. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
He can throw me off anytime he chooses.
Thank you for your comment to Will, I appreciate opposing views AND civil discourse. I am not well versed in history enough to know the genesis of mandatory vaccines for school children, occupancy limits for public spaces, or any other number of legal requirements the government enforces. However, I also am not comfortable with calling all the elected (and appointed) officials we have in our system of government “Governing Authorities” per Romans 13. Luther and Puritans and 12th Century Catholics were much more familiar with kings and popes and the rule they designated to their subordinates. Today’s magistrates seem to… Read more »
The thing that would make it spamming is he made them separate posts, which is considered to be against internet etiquette. Now if anyone wants to engage with him, it is immediately and already a giant visual mess.
Due to comment settings here, shoving them into a single comment hides them from the viewer without a click and thus means they are unlikely to be read.
I fail to see how there is any greater “visual mess” than any particular week’s comment section.
I’m not too worried about the visuals in comment sections, and it is a pain in the neck to find statements at Mablog, so I’m glad he pulled them all up. I think this deserves much much more careful thinking. I think the conservative reformed world (that I am happily a part of) has been dangerously antinomian. And, unfortunately, Moscow has been leading the charge.
Demo, if all the Bible heros I mentioned in the last thread were not antinomian, how in the world can you say that Moscow is leading the charge? In America, God is the ultimate authority. He is followed by our Constitution, then the magistrates. Telling those who stand against the evil that is forced upon us that they are antinomian is incorrect. American Christians are cowardly and unable to even stand up in small groups to proclaim that something as obvious as abortion is ungodly and should be stopped. Over decades, I have watched as Christians abandoned the field saying… Read more »
Dave, Go back and read those passages. Read how David, who had been anointed, consecrated to God to lead his people, related to Saul. How he silenced rebellious words about him, protected him in his foolishness, and revenge his death. Read how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came before the king, unwilling to commit idolatry, but still honoring the king with his rightful title ” Your Majesty.” Paul fled the magistrate to protect his life, but he did not revile or rebel, he encourages submission and honoring. I have always said, and I maintain that we must not obey laws if… Read more »
Demo, lets clear the air on abortion. Yes, God gave America’s unrestrained abortion is because of the wickedness of Christians. However, scripture is clear that if God’s people will call on Him, he will not release His judgement on them. Right now, Christians are more concerned about being good buddies than Godly Christians. Years ago, American Roman Catholics made a stink about the proposed abortion laws, but American Christians rolled over and did not oppose it. If the Southern Baptists alone had made a stand against abortion, we would not have baby parts ripped off living children and sold as… Read more »
I wonder if Wilson will reply. If he does, I wonder if he will admit to his multiple inconsistencies and outright failures in understanding the seriousness of this pandemic. But maybe in his calculations 738,000 deaths is really no big deal.
Heads up, expect the conspiracy theorist, CDC haters, and science deniers to ring in.
738,000 deaths? You sure it’s not 738,123? I love these precise-sounding death tolls that include homicides, suicides and all kinds of other deaths. Because science. Counting Covid | Full Measure – YouTube The irony of calling anyone who disputes you pejoratives in advance must be lost on you. I’m more concerned with dozens of people I know whose employment is threatened despite having natural immunity, zero comorbidities and in many cases working remotely. It’s beyond insane and much more important than expecting DW or anyone else to have a 100% consistent position on the state’s role in public health during… Read more »
I’m sure there’s been dozens of deaths that have been inappropriately attributed to Covid. On the other hand, there are likely hundreds of thousands of Covid-caused deaths that have been missed, so the total count is a huge underestimate.
I could post the scientific papers on that subject, but you seem more like a Steve Sailer kind of guy.
https://www.takimag.com/article/lets-be-over-and-done-in-21/
And to be clear, in every major epidemic it is assumed that the documented case deaths are only a fraction of the total death count. That why the flu death numbers each year (which were quoted here repeatedly back before Covid far surpassed them) were actually estimated ranges far greater than the # of counted flu deaths.
Right on schedule the conspiracy theorist shows up! If your video is all you’ve got, I feel sorry for you. There is a simple solution for those friends of yours. There is a vaccine that can pretty much take care of that. Of course it’s their choice whether to be vaccinated or not, but like all decisions we make in life, there are benefits and/or consequences. Don’t businesses, school systems, colleges and universities, public venues, etc. also have the right to refuse entrance to those who are unvaccinated? I sincerely hope you and your unvaccinated friends and loved ones avoid… Read more »
Pastor Wilson thought that Fauci estimating 100,000-200,000 deaths was so ridiculous as to call into question his qualifications as an expert. So you would think he has to take 700,000+ deaths very seriously, if consistency were a thing for him.
You know perfectly well that he wouldn’t consider the 700k number accurate, so any expectation that presupposes that he does is an irrational one. Unless of course, your goal is to be deliberately unfair.
So the vague insinuation that it is “inaccurate” is enough to mean it can be ignored? Do you have the slightest doubt that the death toll has been MUCH higher than the 100,000-200,000 that Fauci predicted and Wilson dismissed immediately?
And I have never seen Pastor Wilson give the slightest argument for a smaller death toll that wasn’t quickly debunked. As many have pointed out, the true toll is almost certainly higher, not lower.
In the five weeks from August 29-October 2, Idaho’s government reported 2271 total deaths. During that same five weeks in 2019, Idaho only reported 1393 deaths.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
So there were ~900 excess deaths in just 5 weeks. That is almost 50% higher than the “official” count of 618 Covid deaths in that span. Once again showing that the official #’s are almost certainly an undercount.
And if you want to blame something else, then you have to explain why those excess deaths came so suddenly at that exact time. Look at this pattern of excess deaths in Idaho since the pandemic started (the data is listed by week so my month-to-month count is sometimes 4 weeks and sometimes 5 weeks): Jan 2020: 0 Feb 2020: 14 March 2020: 44 April 2020: 15 May 2020: 27 June 2020: 30 July 2020: 85 Aug 2020: 257 Sep 2020: 163 Oct 2020: 256 Nov 2020: 531 Dec 2020: 453 Jan 2021: 251 Feb 2021: 31 Mar 2021: 20… Read more »
Justin,
If he doesn’t believe that the death toll has been over 600,000 then he can’t do basic reasoning. The excess death reports make the toll clear. It is probably upwards of 800,000 at this point.
Jonathan, which ox or oxen of yours has Wilson gored?
You keep telling us you are here to correct him, but never say why.
Your top commentator Andrew is confusing Libertarianism with Anarchism, although in his defense many within the community make the same mistake. Libertarians do not believe in no government, they believe in minimal government – i.e. taking the 10th amendment seriously. And we certainly don’t believe that humans will just do the right thing if left to their own – instead we believe that humans respond to incentives and that market incentives are far more efficient at producing good outcomes than the government stick.
God wanted John to remember.
I would appreciate if someone would please post a reasoned biblical argument for where God gives the civil magistrate the authority to force(mandate) vaccinations and/or quarantine of non-symptomatic individuals. I understand that there may be a time where the quarantining of the symptomatic may fall into the purview of the civil magistrate, but I am only aware of one instance, the leper. It would be helpful to know what standard we can use to know when a disease falls into such a category for quarantining. Or maybe some don’t believe that God has standards for the civil magistrate and whatever… Read more »
Before responding, for clarity, is your position that unless God specifically gave that particular power to a specific civil authority in the Bible, by name, no one can legislate it?
I’m opposed to vaccine mandates but if this is your position, you’re opening yourself to an overwhelming number of holes people can poke at, as there’s a very wide array of sensible laws that God didn’t give out by name.
Pastor Wilson himself argued for both mandatory vaccination and the quarantine of the unvaccinated right here. He used Leviticus 13.
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/and-now-a-brief-word-on-vaccines.html
Justin, it doesn’t have to be an explicit “and God said to Moses, mandate the leper vaccine”. But it should be able to be easily inferred from the law and from the way Jesus and the apostles reasoned from the law. Jonathan, I think Doug Wilson probably regrets that essay at this point. If not, I would disagree with him that the civil magistrate can mandate vaccines. Otherwise, science (by which we mean scientists, or other fallen men) becomes God and we trust it(and them), and not the Word (law) of God. If you disagree, and believe that the civil… Read more »
Sam,
State governments (even Idaho) can and have had all kinds of vaccine mandates for asymptomatic individuals for decades. Vaccines are required to attend public school. Check it out for yourself.
Gentle readers, Will doesn’t mention that Idaho also allowes parents to restrict health care — immunizations, blood transfusions, operations and so on — according to their religious beliefs.
There is always more to the story that the internet doesn’t share.
I guess my question was too much to ask…
“If you disagree, and believe that the civil magistrate does have the right to mandate a vaccine, please give a biblically thought out argument for it.”
Instead, Will, you are assuming your argument. You simply say that governments can and have had all kinds of vaccine mandates (I guess you assume the Divine Right of Kings view of Romans 13), without bringing a biblical argument forward that explains why you believe this. Governments can and have done all sorts of immoral things as well. This does not make it right.
Sam, I don’t require a Bible verse to tell me to get, or not to get a vaccination. Neither does the US government. Our government is secular, not religious (thank God!). I certainly don’t assume the divine right of kings That’s a silly argument. Last time I checked the US is a representative democracy. I’m guessing you’ve learned history via David Barton? If you want a religious or philosophical exemption, or you just plain refuse to get the jabs, go for it. But don’t complain if shop owners, universities, entertainment venues, airlines, etc. refuse admittance without proof of vaccinations. Same… Read more »
So you don’t think that the vaccines should be mandated by the government, that is good. I am not sure what you mean by the government being secular. I hope you don’t mean that the civil magistrate is not under God, or required to uphold the law of God. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. The standard of good and evil is… Read more »
Sam, No, I do think vaccines should be mandated. I also think the government has the right and responsibility to do so. I’m 65 years old, so I grew up having all the usual vaccines jabbed in my arm. I don’t know what you’re afraid of. I hope you don’t think the vaccine is just a way to get a chip inside of you. That’s facebook’s job! I see getting vaccinated as civic duty. It is a way for us to look after our families and our neighbors. I don’t think that God would have me eschew something as simple… Read more »
I guess my question was too much to ask…
“If you disagree, and believe that the civil magistrate does have the right to mandate a vaccine, please give a biblically thought out argument for it.”
At the moment, your argument appears to be, “Well, the government is secular, therefore it can do what it wants”.
I am not asking for an argument on the efficacy of the vaccine, just a biblical basis for the authority of the government to force it upon individuals.
It wasn’t too much to ask. Let me try again. I can’t point you to a verse that explicitly grants or denies the government’s power to vaccinate. Can you? I don’t think the Bible was intended to be a medical how-to book. Perhaps the closest I can come to a biblical argument is that our “magistrates” are doing what experts in infectious diseases consider to be the best way to keep our citizenry healthy and alive. We have already lost close to 800,000 fellow citizens already. Do you think God would want someone to die because you refused a mandate… Read more »
Sam, this is the part I have trouble with. St. Paul wrote that letter knowing that the civil magistrate with authority over him was pagan and certainly didn’t consider himself answerable to the demands of a deity in whom he did not believe. Yet he still said that all governing authorities are appointed by God. This suggests that, as far as St. Paul was concerned, you owe obedience even when your ruler is wicked and tyrannical, and you don’t get to ask for scriptural authority for his unjust demands. As I read on the Geneva Institute website, “God establishes different… Read more »
Jill, Paul would require us to stand up for God’s laws.
Even though our elected officials and appointed officials do not obey the Constitutional restrictions placed upon them, it does not negate the fact that our government is a Constitutional Republic and we as Christians have a responsibility to stand against ungodly laws and actions by our elected and appointed officials.
Sam, I didn’t see your question until now. I am going into an internet hole and will respond Saturday if I can.
Dave, no need, I wasn’t asking you, and this comment section is headed for the memory hole.
The traditional protestant answer would be that the governments should be obeyed regarding the body/life or property, even if it is extremely damaging to yourself. The most common example given is being conscripted into war on some issue that you care not about, and maybe even actively disagree with. This isn’t popular among American’s consumed by libertarianism today… Here is a brief excerpt from Luther with the basic idea, but read any of the magisterial reformers on politics and you will be challenged in their deference – they take the biblical command to be subject to unjust and unreasonable rulers… Read more »
Yes, wasn’t that Luther’s position after he backed away from the Peasants’ Revolt? As I understood it, he insisted on obedience to even the most appallingly unjust government as long as you weren’t required to murder someone or renounce the faith. I always felt a sorry for the peasants because of his previous support.
Yeah, it’s not just Luther. The early protestants generally give American Conservatives heart burn, they are incredibly deferential to authorities (and prone to using state power… in Calvin’s Geneva your home could be searched for rosaries and blasphemy was a crime). They really believe that Romans 13 wasn’t just put in there to give conservatives a chance to ignore the Bible just like the liberals do… “Well, you know, you have to look at the context, and clearly a detailed word study is in order, and taking all of scripture subjection here means more like take advice from, I mean… Read more »
Interesting about Geneva Calvinists. So was the Catholic church in predominantly Catholic countries. They deferred to the state as long as the state was willing to take care of heretics and other undesirables. Whatever one may think about who was on the right side in the Spanish civil war, it was scandalous that priests blessed the rifles used in Franco’s firing squads before executions. The real exception was Ireland where during most of the 20th century the government deferred to the church.
That’s a fantastic summary of certain modern interpretations of Romans 13.
Which view of Romans 13 do you subscribe to, the Divine Right of Kings or the The Regulative Principal of Government? From The Divine Right of Resistance by Phillip Kayser https://leanpub.com/divine-right-of-resistance/read “Does Romans 13 Keep Us From Imitating Biblical Heroes?If our theology is producing a different kind of Christian than we see God praise in the Bible, it’s worth taking another look. The current popular interpretation of Romans 13:1-7 would never produce men and women like the ones praised in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. What is the “authority” in Romans 13 that we are not to resist?… Read more »
I don’t think either of those views make sense in context. They don’t fit the immediate context of that section of Romans, nor of Paul’s writing in general, nor of the New Testament as a whole, and especially not when looking at the Roman government and the apostles’ and other early Christians’ reaction to it. Peter and John explicitly rejected the command to stop preaching. Peter happily escaped from prison and evaded Herod’s attempts to arrest him. The “Divine Right of Kings” interpretation doesn’t work because it would be completely nonsensical in the Roman context that Paul was writing in,… Read more »
I don’t see how “our faith” is wishy-washy. I am extremely particular about what my faith in the Jesus Christ of Scriptures entails and how it relates to my actions. Paul did not consider “faith” to be a wishy-washy word except when it was misused. Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. I tend not… Read more »
Jonathan, Thanks for taking the time to lay that out. It is good stuff. Your pacifism is showing ;) but otherwise I think it is solid. We should also remember that it isn’t in a vacuum, 1 Peter 2:13 repeats an almost identical command. And the same basix construction is used for Christ’s submission to his father, the churches submission to Christ, wives submission to husbands, submission to elders, and slaves submission to masters. Magistrates aren’t some unique species of submission where we have to tie ourselves in in theological knots to determine when it is time to “disregard” what… Read more »
As usual, because I was not raised with a classical education, I found myself having to search for the meaning of some obscure phrase in your or one of your letter-writer’s writings. This time it brought me to this page:
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/18/magazine/on-langugae-stiffed-again.html
Which I think you might find interesting, but really, specifically the last paragraph.
I didn’t understand the white babies remark, and I’m still unclear why telling white people to have white babies is “edgier” than advising Christians of all races to get married and have lots of babies. I didn’t suspect any white nationalist undertones and I’m sure Doug wasn’t suggesting that white babies are preferable to any other. But surely the edgy, counter-culture thing to do these days is to encourage traditional families for everyone. I generally get Doug’s humor but I honestly don’t get this.
It is controversial to say anything neutral or positive about white people.
“I’m sure Doug wasn’t suggesting that white babies are preferable to any other.”
There is nothing remotely humorous about his comment. Given all you have read from Wilson in the past 5+ years and his multiple “walk- backs” from his racial views, why do doubt that he meant exactly what he wrote? It’s simply just another example of his version of weaponized Christianity.
I agree. Nothing is remotely humourous about that comment or any other thing he has written in the last 5 years. Also is he seriously saying that white males are oppressed in America?
Yeah, you’re right. If anyone is oppressed in America, it’s black males. From an article dated October 22, 2021 in Scientific American entitled, “Nominees for a Science Award Were All [Black] Men—Nobody Won”: Five of the nation’s top ice scientists found themselves in a conundrum.They’d been tasked with a formidable job: reviewing candidates for the American Geophysical Union’s fellows program, the most prestigious award given by the world’s largest earth and space science society. But when the group looked at its list of candidates, all nominated by peers, it spotted a problem.Every nominee on the list was a [black] man.… Read more »
I have that issue of Scientific American. Please cite the page #. I skimmed the magazine but couldn’t find the article.
It’s rather unlikely that FP reads Scientific American. If his previous posts are any indication, his social media is a constant stream of “Own the Libs!” memes that he then regurgitates here without actually reading the articles.
So your proof that Black males aren’t discriminated against is an article about a field dominated by White men, that gives out almost all its awards to White men? So far as I can tell there isn’t even a single Black man mentioned in that article. Seems like that’s better evidence for oppression than against it.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nominees-for-a-science-award-were-all-white-men-nobody-won/
I’m dying laughing over here. You are so far off-base it’s hilarious. Whoever’s paying you to post this drivel ought to demand a refund.
In the meantime, you could — you know, just to change things up — respond to what I actually said. Why not try answering my question? A simple yes or no will do.
Respond to what you “actually said”? The only sentences in that quote that came from you were sarcastic snark, I replied to their clear intent.
Or are you now pretending that you meant any of them? Literally no one would believe that, so why even troll?
If I’m only trolling, then why react?
I wouldn’t be here laughing so hard if you had replied to the “clear intent” of my comment. As it turns out, I know my intent. So, you’re just going to have to take my word for it when I tell you that you missed it by a mile.
I think I understood your intent but is there any evidentiary value in the actions of a group of senior scientists who are not ordinarily presumed to hold representative mainstream views? Even liberal Hollywood doesn’t call off an awards show due to inadequate minority representation on the nominations list. I don’t this event can be taken either as evidence of oppression or the absence of it in society at large.
Would this incident have bothered you more if the nominees were black?
If a white committee had withdrawn an award because all the nominees were black? I would certainly be interested in knowing why they reached that decision. Was it because black people have traditionally dominated the field of cryosphere research and the committee believes that the nominators should select from a more racially diverse pool? But if black people actually dominated cryosphere research, then they would have been the ones nominating the candidates and choosing the winner. Therefore, should an all-black committee withdraw an award because, in this hypothetical environment in which almost all scientists in a given field are black,… Read more »
Jilly, we all think you’re the beez kneez, but this one tree you want to zero in on ain’t the forest. The fact that none of the resident lefties here are able to answer a simple question — the answer to which is glaringly obvious — is what’s called a tell. I only gave one example. Here’s another, in the form of a quote from the late Noel Ignatiev, a one time Harvard professor, in the Sept-Oct 2002 edition of Harvard Magazine, in an article entitled “Abolish the White Race”: The goal of abolishing the white race is on its… Read more »
Thank you for the kind words! I had indeed heard of Ignatiev and I was familiar with his website emblazoned with the words “Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” I was also familiar with the famous “toaster” war at Harvard when he angered most of his fellow Jews by insisting that a kosher toaster shouldn’t be paid for with Harvard money! I think Ignatiev was a race-obsessed Marxist crank (though his book on the Irish was pretty good). I think it’s true that people who don’t read The Atlantic and the New Yorker while they wait for their dental… Read more »
Well done. You and I breathe the same rarified air. Check’s in the mail.
Who’s more reviled: Ignatiev, or Derek Chauvin? Keep in mind Keith Ellison flat out admitted there was no evidence of a hate crime or racial bias.
A check with a bunch of zeros, please, to keep me in avocado toast. Obviously Chauvin is more reviled. But what appears to be violence caught on videotape has a much more immediate and dramatic impact than the words of a Harvard academic. If the video hadn’t been flashed around the world, the outrage would have been local and the trial would have been a credibility contest between Chauvin and the witnesses. Back in the day, the LAPD had a fearsome reputation for brutality (and corruption). If no one had taped the police with Rodney King, it would just have… Read more »
Jilly, you said: “But I do believe that the Chauvin tape would have produced outrage even if Floyd had been white.” No, it wouldn’t have, and you know it. Two names: Tony Timpa; Daniel Shaver. Leading up to their deaths, they were treated worse by the police than Floyd was. There were no riots. No protests. To keep us on point, here’s yet another example of anti-white racism, this time from an article in City Journal entitled, “Bank of Amerika”: Over the next three days, Bank of America teaches employees about intersectionality, unconscious bias, microaggressions, and systemic racism. “Racism in… Read more »
Philip White Natasha McKenna Corey Jones Levar Jones Ernest Satterwhite Yvette Smith Tayler Rock Cameron Tillman Jonathan Sanders Jonathan Ferrell Andrew Thomas DeOntre Dorsey There are numerous examples of Black people who have been killed by police under horrific circumstances without it leading to riots and protest. Having a huge public response after a police killing is usually a function of two main factors: the amount of video/witness evidence to the killing that triggers a reaction in the viewers, and the degree to which the involved community already feels beaten and oppressed by the police and thus has built up… Read more »
Apparently, I’m not only trolling. Congratulations. All that emotionally manipulative special pleading and you still didn’t invalidate my point in the least. George Floyd was undeniably evil. Funny how Romans 13 all of a sudden goes out the window when it comes to him. And that very same “community that felt very pushed down by police” turned around and begged for them to come back after the Minneapolis crime rate skyrocketed after Floyd’s death. Daniel Shaver was not evil. He didn’t commit any crime. Yet you’ll never talk about his helplessness, the coldness of the officer, and the brutal image… Read more »
I was outraged about Daniel Shaver’s shooting and told many people about it. It was a terrible example of police violence, one of thousands that occur every year. And it got national coverage, as it deserved. However, it was not the impetus for the same reaction as the killing of George Floyd, for the obvious reasons I already gave. Everything else you claim regarding what I do and don’t care about is a lie, as we’ve already covered before. I, unlike you, have proven what I care about with the work and ministry I’ve been doing for my entire life,… Read more »
Your personal outrage at Shaver’s death doesn’t matter. The fact is, Shaver’s death drew far less attention, didn’t prompt any protests, nor did it enrich race-hustlers such as self-avowed Marxist Patrisse Cullors to go out and buy her fourth mansion. The only “reason” the evil, criminal, junkie Floyd’s death drew far more outrage is because the media lied by not showing the entire arrest, lied by making racial hay where there was none, cranked the lies up past eleven, and told people what to think. And like the gullible leftist you are, you fell for it, what with your pathetically… Read more »
That’s quite obviously not true, as a jury who saw all the evidence presented in court by Chauvin’s own defense attorneys, not the media, convicted him unanimously of manslaughter on the first vote before they had even deliberated together.
If your argument to personally attack me is “I find the killing of George Floyd to have been a terrible thing”, that says a lot regarding the sort of straws you need to grasp at.
And why can’t you answer any of the questions?
I’ve noticed you have a distinct pattern of going even more over the top with your fake outrage and ridiculous insults the more you feel the need to distract from something.
What you said about me is a lie. You know nothing about my life, whereas other commenters here do, so others know you’re lying too. Who are you trying to convince?
I think the apparent brutality shown in the tape would have produced outrage. It would have been local and nowhere near as intense. I hadn’t heard of those people until I looked them up. But there was local outrage here when LAPD killed a homeless mentally ill white woman whose only weapon was her shopping cart–and she didn’t use her cart to threaten the officers. There was outrage across Canada when airport RCMP officers tazered to death a white Polish tourist (unarmed) who didn’t obey commands because he didn’t speak English. He was agitated but he threatened nobody. I agree… Read more »
“I hadn’t heard of those people until I looked them up.” Exactly. Because they’re white. The fact is, when you adjust for the homicide rate, police kill whites at a higher rate than they do blacks. Think about this another way: The reason blacks killed by police make the news is the same reason anything else makes the news: Because it is relatively rare and drives ratings. A side note: This whole “police brutality” thing is overblown. Wrongful deaths at the hands of police — no matter the skin color of the decedent — do happen, but those are in… Read more »
“Because they’re white.” I already falsified that by naming numerous Black victims of terrible police killings who got far less press than the guy you talked about. And your claim that police killings of Black people get media attention because they are “relatively rare” is false – there have been over 300 police killings of black folk a year, and only a tiny fraction of those get any attention at all. Studies have shown that police killings of Black folk are not just disproportionate, but those under the most egregious circumstances – police killings of people who were unarmed, who… Read more »
Jonathan, I have to take exception to your 300 number. It is true that the police kill triple digit black people (and triple digit white people) each year. But the vast majority of these are armed and clearly menacing either the police or another person. There are generally less than 20 unarmed killings of black people each year. As far as social problems go, I have to say it is oretty far down on my list of American ills. Police in American cities have an incredibly hard job. They have to go and deal with people every day thatr he… Read more »
First off, before we get into the statistics in the USA, let me repeat the comparison. In the entire nation of Germany, police average around 6 killings TOTAL of all races in all circumstances. In England it’s usually less than 2. Other countries rarely have more than 1 if any. And nearly all of those killings are of armed suspects who pose a clear and immediate threat. To have 20-40 killings of unarmed black folk per year is already an incredibly high number which is not even close to replicated in any other developed nation, per capita or total. Per… Read more »
The reason the UK figure is so low is that Britain is as far as I know the only country with a police force that is not routinely armed. There used to be a kind of understanding between the police and criminal fraternity that neither side carrying guns was beneficial to both parties. With increasing levels of violent crime, these days armed officers are always on stand-by, but you are unlikely to encounter them during normal patrols. The figures for Germany (the number of people shot dead by police in Germany for the years 1990 to 2019) are set out… Read more »
There are other police forces that don’t carry, such as New Zealand, and as with the UK they see both very low levels of police violence as well as low levels of violence against the police. I think it rather obvious that escalating violence on one side tends to escalate it on the other side, and deescalating on one side tends to deescalate on the other. I’ve read accounts by Scottish police (who I somehow doubt are wimps of any sort) who were absolutely shocked at the manner in which American police choose to engage.
And thank you for the German policing stats. They appear to have grown somewhat in the last 6 years but are still of the same order of magnitude that I remember. I do apologize that most of my statistics will be slightly out of date – I did nearly all of my research on this subject in 2015, and thus am typically quoting #’s that reflect the situation between 2000 and 2014. This was a blog post I wrote at that time.
https://totrustingod.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-systematic-violence-of-broken-system.html
I looked at your link and it made horrific reading.
The same German source also has the latest figures for the US. Assuming you never had German inflicted on you at school:
Weiß = White
Schwarz = Black
Andere = Other
Unbekannt = Unknown
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/611009/umfrage/durch-polizisten-getoetete-menschen-in-den-usa-nach-bevoelkerungsgruppen/
The figures for Germany may have increased since 2015 due to violence from large-scale immigration, which has included some with a ‘terrorist’ background. (These are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime, but not enough to offset a general downward trend.)
A quick search revealed a few other police forces which limit firearm carrying:
UK (England, Wales, and Scotland)
Iceland
New Zealand
Ireland (4,000 out of 15,000 officers are licensed to carry)
Norway
Bhutan
Fiji
Tonga
Samoa
I’m not surprised about New Zealand. My sister-in-law moved there from England – it’s where you go if you want to get away from the rat-race and enjoy England as it used to be about 70 years ago. Not least much less crime!
And you don’t have to learn a language.
FWIW, the homicide rate in New Zealand now (13 per million) is actually slightly larger than the homicide rate in the UK (11/million), which itself is only a little larger than the 1950 UK homicide rate (8/million).
Of course, that’s dwarfed by the US murder rate (58/million) which is not much higher than it was in 1950 (46/million).
All those #s were looked up quickly, so apologies if there’s an error.
Jonathan, I appreciate that you are passionate and well informed on this issue. I don’t want to down play it too much, because America has a big problem with violence and police violence is not just a response to that problem, but it is part of it, beginning to end. But I don’t find comparisons to various european countries compelling at all. With regards to rates of violent crime we are in between Europe and other countries in the Americas (which is by far the most violent region on earth, especially when you control for income). Our rate of police/security… Read more »
I think the fact that we have to compare to Mexico and Brazil (which are borderline failed states in their most violent regions with the police and criminal elements engaged in a long-running war, not any sort of regulated society) is ridiculous. The manner in which both of those nations police and the degree of corruption in their police forces is horrific. We have similar per capita wealth and education levels to Europe, not South America, and far greater national wealth and government resources than any European nation. We shouldn’t be so vastly inferior to them on this issue that… Read more »
Jonathan, The reason I compared the US to other western hemisphere countries, is because we share a very high rate of violence for our level of development with them. If you plot countries by per capita GDP and murder rate, there is a strong correlation and the Americas stick out like a sore thumb. Mexico has about the same GDP per capita as Belarus, and 10 times the murder rate. The US has a per capita GDP about the same as Norway and Hong Kong and about 10x the murder rate. Even Canada is something of an outlier. I don’t… Read more »
“Changes in police behavior” after high profile use of force incidents, in my experience, almost universally means “police disengage and stop doing their job to the same degree”, rather than police working hard to do their jobs differently. The mentality that appears to manifest itself is, “If you won’t let us do the job in the manner we’re accustomed to do it, then we’ll show you by not doing the job at all.” In fact, in some incidents it has been openly verbalized as such. Rather than being a substantially different manner of operating, in some respects this is actually… Read more »
One last addition, the personal part. I’ll email you the proof for each one of these, though they are a little bit too close to me to post the actual links publicly. My grandfather was a career cop and the chief of police. I didn’t realize until about 15 years ago that he was a racist (I found out from my grandmother, in an unguarded moment at the dinner table where she declared herself a racist as well and attempted to defend it). I didn’t discover until just last year that he was actually convicted in federal court for civil… Read more »
And your big evidence for the claim that “White males are getting a bum rap” is that a high-paying, prestigious field which happens to be dominated by white males at every level, where they are exerting virtually all of the power in that field every day of every year and always have….had one tiny subset of 5 people (all white themselves) who didn’t hand out one award one year. Just 1 award out of 60. The rest of which were primarily given out to white men, just like they are every year. And that one silly decision by 5 people… Read more »
The killing of Danny Shaver actually produced a lot of outrage and media at the time. I first heard about it from an excellent article by Conor in The Atlantic. But there were several outraged articles in the NY Time, WaPo, etc. The ACLU even managed to go into outrage mode both over the killing and the trial. Of course it didn’t get the kind of coverage that Floyd or Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin did, there is definitely a racial dynamic at play as well as a certain ficklesness in interest and the public. But it got as much… Read more »
They make kosher toasters?
It’s a regular toaster that is used only for kosher bread. If non-kosher bread is used, it has to be thoroughly cleaned (every single crumb removed) and left idle for 24 hours before re-use. If it’s a toaster oven, it has to be kashered before first use, which involves removing the racks and using a blow torch on them and turning the rest of the oven up to its highest heat for a certain length of time. If somebody mistakenly uses it to heat up a cheese and pepperoni Hot Pocket, Orthodox Jews can’t use it again until it is… Read more »
A blow torch? How metal is that!
`So, are you saying that you lied? Wow, I bet your mother is so proud of you. You really are a sad person.
Humor isn’t humorous to the humorless. Or to those operating in bad faith.
Jill, the reason it’s “edgier” is because our culture and the powers-that-be are more hostile to traditional white families than they are to the non-whites who adopt that way of life.
How is the culture more hostile to traditional white families than to traditional Hispanic or Asian families?
Because the culture is anti-white. White families bring white children into the world, which they think is bad.
But specifically who thinks that? I don’t think you could tell that from looking at white liberal politicians–the majority of whom are married with white wives and white children. Academics even at the most liberal universities are white with white families. The fact that mass entertainment shows a lot of black people and interracial couples is, I think, a phenomenon that is due to numerous factors not all of which bode ill for whites in general. Probably the most significant of these is a desire to increase minority representation in the arts. It’s not just race; it’s also gender and… Read more »
You’re right, white liberals are definitely hypocrites. There’s no shortage of white liberals who bemoan white supremacy while living basically like white supremacists. The point is that the morals of the age require dumping on whites, or at the very least staying silent in the face of that abuse, in order to get ahead. We know who has power based on whom we may or may not criticize. If white supremacy were real, it wouldn’t be socially incentivized to complain about white supremacy. It would be silenced in the way that complaining about Jewish supremacy is silenced. Those parents aren’t… Read more »
It’s not even remotely true. They suffer from a persecution complex.
You can bash whites all day with no repercussions, but say the wrong thing about certain minority groups and you lose your job and become a social outcast.
What do you mean by bashing white people?
Talk about how bad they are, about white supremacy, white privilege, fragility, etc. Doing that for any other group comes with the threat of consequences including loss of job (especially when it comes to Ashkenazi Jews).
Armin, not all that long ago you argued that blacks should be involuntarily repatriated back to Africa. You’ve also expressed your opinion that Ashkenazi Jews should be, if not kicked out, then divested of their positions and bank accounts. People with your views are all over the internet. When blacks and Ashkenazi Jews read these opinions, do you think they are unfair in characterizing them as indicative of white supremacist views? Is their calling your views racist exactly equivalent to your statement that you favor mass deportation of nonwhites?
You’re misrepresenting my views about blacks, but forget about that. Please stay on topic. The point is that if someone says those things about Jews and blacks, they risk losing everything, whereas saying something similar about white people has no such adverse consequences. Again, you know who has power based on whom you’re not allowed to criticize. That’s the point I’m making. As soon as it becomes equally costly to trash whites as it is to trash Jews, then we can say that society is no longer anti-white.
Your views may have changed, but I remember your using the “it’s okay to kick out house guests who eat up your food, damage your property, refuse to clean up, and have massively outworn their welcome” analogy with reference to black people living in the US. If kicking out doesn’t involve involuntary expulsion and repatriation, what is the point of the analogy? It’s not off topic to mention white nationalist rhetoric in a discussion about the one-way nature of permissible speech. That rhetoric alarms both blacks and Jews to an extent it is probably difficult for you to recognize. It… Read more »
Exactly, word for word what Jill said.
Where did you learn such hatre? Certainly not from Jesus.
Armin,
I don’t bash white people. I do tend to be rough on racists and hypocrites. You fit into both categories. So, I won’t be lectured to by a self proclaimed raciest. Odds are you’re also a misogynist brute. If don’t know what that is, look it up.
It’s edgier because it will get a rise from the woke and woke adjacent. I have a bunch of white kids and I have never been made to feel bad about their blue eyes… but you know 14 words – a future for the white race and all that. It is deliberate dog-whistley provocation. And of course it worked.
Help a brother out. So what’s the opposite pejorative for woke? Asleep? Sleepy? Comatose? Hard Hearted?
Nearest antonym for “woke” is “racist,” so far as I can tell.
Isn’t that a tad bit harsh? Let’s go with fascist.
No, it doesn’t get at the same thing.
I think the adjective you are looking for is sane.
Nope. Fascist hits the bullseye.
Exhibit A: Trump
Exhibit B: 01/06/21
I could go on, but I think you get the gist.
I’m far from a Trump fan. But if Trump=fascist then fascist has no meaning. Its the equivalent of people calling Biden a Marxist (or even Maoist…). Both of these are just Boo words that mean people/position I don’t like. The first step to thinking well is putting away childish categories/nomenclature.
Easy, Tiger. I certainly don’t consider you a fascist or a Trump supporter. But if you don’t think Trump is a fascist, then “fascist” has no meaning. Then again, maybe you haven’t paying attention.
“It’s edgier because it will get a rise from the woke and woke adjacent.”
“The first step to thinking well is putting away childish categories/nomenclature.”
Right back at you. Is that woke or woke adjacent enough for you?
I didn’t think you were accusing me of fascism. But no, Trump was/is not fascist. Fascism is really hard to define because it was a movement centered in a certain time, but core to it is (in Mussolini’s words): “we are free to believe this is the collective century, and therefore the century of the State. The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State – a synthesis and unit inclusive of all values – interprets, develops, and… Read more »
The current cozy relationship between big business and government can tend toward fascism when government uses business to punish dissent that it can’t legally suppress on its own.
Agreed. I don’t like to pull a “democrats are the real facists” move. Because I don’t think it’s true. But the way that many corporations have lined up behind our new flag, the pride rainbow, completely with a whike aesthetic, is far more faciat than anything Trump accomplished. I think Trump had an authoritarian streak, but he had none of the mythopoetic power (sorry, I don’t know a decent lay term) of the least fascist.
And you want me to give Wilson some slack? He already lives in an echo chamber.
He is allowing you into his “echo chamber” to criticise him without charity. He has also generally left up even his stupid and most embarrassing takes. Pastor Wilson is far from perfect, but he exemplifies a number of virtues in short supply and you would do well to learn, even whole maintaining a critical detachment.
In some circles having a white baby is the height of bad manners. Therefore it’s “edgy”.
What circles are you talking about? Point me to some sources.
Wellesley and Swarthmore Colleges. Certain groups of individuals who contribute regularly to The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Slate, the Huffington Post. Those kinds of circles.
Yep. There have been articles written.
Like this one:
https://www.theroot.com/whiteness-is-a-pandemic-1846494770
Adam,
That opinion piece didn’t address the belief that white people shouldn’t be having babies. It did have salient points about white supremacist killing people of color. Big difference!
So, unless you self identify as a white supremacist, that article wasn’t about you.
Would point me to the articles you’ve read on this subject?
Saying specifically that white people should not have children of their own?
Fascinating. Have you read any of their articles?
Sure have.
Please point me towards them. I’d like to read them. Adam’s suggestion missed the mark by at least mile. He confused white supremacist killing black people for white people advocating for no more white babies.
Which circles? I travel in reasonably liberal circles and I have never encountered anyone who thinks it’s controversial, let alone a bad thing, for white parents to have white children. Probably the majority of married white liberals have at least one child of their own. That would include liberal teachers, doctors, lawyers, people who work in Hollywood, politicians, and the people who write for the Los Angeles Times. Who is saying this and is there reason to believe those views are held by anyone outside a radical (and very small) fringe element? Even Bill Gates, who worries about over-population more… Read more »
Jill, To steelman Doug’s use of the phrase – there is certainly racial anxiety in some circles around having children. It seems to have subsided somewhat but many many evangelicals have adopted black children and, in part, this is because these are children that need to be adopted and loved and the Christians love and want them. It is all great. But there is a certain amount of virtue signaling about the issue, a certain shine of extra holiness for adopting and caring for a black child. Now, as I said, I have loads of white kids that look like… Read more »
Ironically, those people look favorably on adopting Black babies specifically because it’s so countercultural.
Most White people go out of their way to adopt White babies. That’s why the average Black child spends twice as long in foster care before getting adopted than the average White child, even though agencies will often charge up to 10x as much for the White adoption.
Oh, I know. It is status currency among a larger group. But evangelicals are basically the only people who live out their professed values in this way. Despite the stupid talking points about pro-life people not caring about people after birth, evangelicals are by far the most likely to adopt and they are more likely to adopt the least of these. I think these are praiseworthy traits, so my comment should be taken without much sting. But when I see people like David French (I’m not going to go on an anti-French tirade, don’t worry) use his black adopted kid… Read more »
You’ll have to try harder if you want to convince me. Conservative evangelicals overwhelmingly vote against social programs that help both poor white and black Americans. As far as I can see, they only give a rip about babies in the womb, after that, their own and their friends’. I’ll grant you that there are some exceptions.
Will, If you don’t know its true it is because you are sticking your head in the sand. Professing Christians are over twice as likely to adopt than other demographically similar groups (white people are far more likely to adopt than other groups) and evangelicals, despite earning considerably less than the median white, have the highest rates. Professing Christians are also about twice as likely to serve in foster care. This is enough of a phenomena that there have been round of hand wringing about whether the enormous appetite for adoption by evangelicals is leading to dishonest foreign agencies stealing… Read more »
I know you’re answering a different statement by Will, who I think is being unnecessarily difficult. But just to be clear (since it relates to the main discussion), most trans-racial adoption by White parents is of Hispanic or Asian babies, while only a small minority of White adoptive parents are adopting Black babies. Zill 2017 reports that only 9% of adopted kindergarteners are black, despite 25% of kids in foster care being black. And Khanna and Killian 2015 found that many White parents who participate in adoption are willing to adopt a non-white baby but not a Black baby, since… Read more »
To add one more data point, this study found that non-Black babies up for adoption were seven times more likely to get interest from potential adoptive parents than Black babies were:
https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Industrial-Organization/collard-wexler-100304.pdf
I will take a look at your sources when I have time, but a far as I can tell babies of any race have enormous demand (though there is the least demand for black babies, I grant that). Foster kids who aren’t adopted are usually older, have at least one relative who has a claim to them, or have disabilities or severe behavioral problems. I certainly don’t deny that white babies, and to a lesser extent white children, are preferred, but I think it is easy to overstate the effect, and it seems like your source may have cherrypicked “kindergarten”… Read more »
You’re a very intelligent man, Have you considered the reasons why there is such a demand for adoptions?
There are a lot of reasons, and I haven’t studied thus deeply, so I’m shooting from the hip a little bit. But the primary reasons for adoption demand are 1. Many people are truly altruistic, they know there are children out there that need love and they want to provide it. I know a lot of families that have adopted children, including special needs children, and they very much fall in this category. And 2. The same reason there is so much demand for fertility treatments, people (especially affluent people) are denying marriage and childbearing and in many cases they… Read more »
I also have friends who’ve done the same. You’ve done a good job pegging the demand side of the situation. What are your thought about the domestic supply side?
The supply side is primarily fron two sources.. 1. Women who have become pregnant at a young age, who don’t have stable partners and don’t want to upturn their life to become the primary care giver for a baby, but who also can’t countenance killing their baby. And 2. Women who are embedded in drugs and disfunction. Many of these women would like to keep their children (at least during sober moments) but are profoundly neglectful and unfit. I have seen plenty of both situations up close. There is also a relatively large supply of babies/children from foreign counties, which… Read more »
To go back to the main point – there is absolutely zero evidence that there is a lack of desire for having White children, which is the claim that Pastor Wilson’s original “joke” rested on. The preference has always been towards White babies and will continue to be towards White babies, and White parents don’t need any additional encouragement to act on that preference.
I agree with you, Jonathan. I am adding nuance, not disputing your central point!
Gentle Readers, Jonathan is missing the forest for the trees. Around the world, white women are desired by Africans, Hispanics, Asians, Chinese and just about everyone. They show up on advertising, in the magazines and as arm candy for very rich guys.
Jonathan, like so many others, also has a distinct inablilty to laugh at today’s mixed up world.
Huh? You’ve completely lost me there Dave.
Scratching my head too, but it is an interesting direction. There is a bias toward lighter skin among nearly every large group of people. If you look around the internet “colorism” is usually blamed on colonialism, bit that appears to not be correct, it predates colonialism and is present in contexts where it makes no sense as a pure status marker (for instance, the preference of Arab ruler and steppe people for women from the caucuses rather than much higher status darker women with relatives in high places, etc. Also very long term stable castes in India are generally graduated… Read more »
Again, I’m not “blaming” one factor or another for the adoption preference, just pointing out that the preference is clearly towards White babies which falsifies Pastor Wilson’s suggestion that there’s some lack of desire for or avoidance of White babies. In terms of the origins of colorism I think it’s more historically debatable than your summary suggests. In India the original population was dark-skinned before the lighter-skinned “Aryan” invasion dominated the country, so colonialism could easily still be at the root of skin color preferences there, just a much earlier colonialism that was only later reinforced by the Muslim and… Read more »
For the sake of argument, I’ll grant you your adoption stats.
Would you care to address my criticism of conservative evangelicals overwhelming voting against social programs that help poor white and black families?
Will, You don’t need to accept them for the sake if argument, and they aren’t ‘my’ stats. You should rather accept them because they reflect reality and is good to believe true things and bad to believe false things. Christians are more likely to adopt and more charitable than other groups even when you control for everything you can think of and even when you remove donations to churches. Practicing Christianity absolutely makes people more altruistic. On the topic of social programs people have very different views about the nature and proper role of government and these are often commitments… Read more »
I suspect that a lot of those arrangements are illegal, but should they be? I think it’s amazing that a healthy woman in her early twenties can earn $10,000 per cycle for selling her eggs to a Los Angeles fertility clinic–even more if she is attractive and academically successful–but that’s off the table once the egg has been fertilized. You can donate your frozen embryos but you’re not supposed to sell them.
Jill,
You know me. I’m the guy who is completely against in vitro fertilization and most other fertility therapy, and I’m leaning more anti-contraception by the year. I think the intrusion of technology into baby-making is dehumanizing. However, I also recognize that as long as there is demand for this (healthy eugenic babies) that demand will be filled somehow. I lament the socio-sexual and transhumanist regime that we live in, but I can’t just pretend that everything is my ideal. So… I don’t really know.
You and me both on IVF/fertility, and I’m afraid it’s only going to get much worse than that in terms of transhumanism.
It is because Conservative evangelicals do not believe those social programs actually help. They don’t have to vote your way to satisfy your metric of caring for babies. The bottom line is they put their money where their mouth is. Unlike your ilk who uses votes to ease your conscience acting like you are doing something by using other people’s money to support your failed social programs. And yes your social programs are a huge failure.
You don’t know me, but if slandering me makes you feel better, then go in peace. Our Maker will judge us both.
The behavior you have demonstrated of repeatedly slandering fellow believers on this blog is adequate evidence as to the content of your character.
In the slandering department, I’m afraid you have me confused with Wilson.
Was this comment really intended to be so transparently self-refuting? Tossing off an unsourced, overly-general accusation is admittedly not the most textbook case of slander, but it’s still a lot more slanderous than … well, I can’t actually think of an example of something Pastor Wilson has said that could be called slanderous. Or libelous, for that matter.
Do you consider making a false statement about someone to be slander, or do you “have to prove the person knew it was false”, as per the legal requirement? Because if making false statements is enough, Pastor Wilson has made numerous such statements recently. He claimed the CDC were all compusive liers, Fauci has been telling us falsehoods and scamming the American public for over a year, claimed all sorts of others have lied or faked Covid data, claimed that BLM + Covid-19 + lockdowns + masks were all a calculated attempt to get Trump out of office, claimed the… Read more »
I hadn’t considered that because, when I stop to think, the only adopted kids I know came from Russia and China. Without intending to bash the parents, I don’t think the primary reason was to rescue unfortunate children but was rather due to infertility, the shortage of adoptable children, and the lucky ownership of masses of disposable cash to spend on lawyers. They were raised like little princes but have turned out well. I can see how that could be true because I know people who always choose the least adoptable cat in the shelter and shame the rest of… Read more »
Awww, “Chairman Meow”? That’s cute! I’ve only ever gotten cats when friends have found their homes/yards blessed with kittens.
I don’t remember where I read the opinion piece in which a lady wrote about feeling guilty adding another white baby to the population, but I do remember having read it. You don’t forget something that screwed up.
My best cat ever came from a lady who was dying in hospital but couldn’t let go until she knew her cat had found a good home. I never met her but I dote on every ounce of my 24-pound Maine Coon. The intermediary thought she was a girl so my daughter named her Holly in honor of Breakfast at Tiffany. One night I was sleepily rubbing Holly’s tummy and made a startling discovery; by morning she was Buddy Holly.
Step 1: Pastor Wilson sees racists make a big deal about the need for White people to have more White babies.
Step 2: Pastor Wilson wanted to find a way to say the same thing about having White babies, without being racist, so he could then mock anyone who lumped him in with the racists.
I have never heard anyone tell me not to have White babies, nor has any White person I know been shamed for having White babies. I have more often seen White people criticized for having non-White babies — by commenters on this very blog.
I submitted a letter that didn’t get a response, so I’ll post it here instead:
What he intended to say: Be countercultural.
What his detractors think he said: Interracial marriage is wrong.
What he actually said: The ultimate mark of an orthodox and believing Christian, for those who are able, is producing Caucasian offspring.
The truth, for those who are confused: The ultimate mark of an orthodox and believing Christian is the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26).
Pastor Wilson, I await your acknowledgment of the issue here.
Doug is on record as not opposing interracial marriage so that is not what I took his comment to mean. His previous comments that common faith takes priority over common race is why this remark surprised me. I’m afraid that your paraphrase has only deepened my confusion. Does the fruit of Holy Spirit refer to the offspring of Christian parents? My knowledge of scripture is weak, but I thought the Galatians passage identified the fruit of the Holy Spirit as kindness, gentleness,self-control, and other virtues that should be reflected in our Christian conduct. But, even if I am mistaken about… Read more »
I thought the Galatians passage identified the fruit of the Holy Spirit as kindness, gentleness, self-control, and other virtues that should be reflected in our Christian conduct. That is correct. I also believe that while having godly children is a noble aim, there’s no command for everyone to do so (1 Corinthians 7:7), nor is it the ultimate mark of an orthodox and believing Christian. Here’s how I get my paraphrase: To be an orthodox and believing Christian is to be guilty of violating the only real taboo they have. So I would want to encourage you in [how to… Read more »
If you want to convey “what he actually said,” you’d need to quote him rather than use a fairly loaded paraphrase. He never said the words you use in you “what he actually said” and whether he actually meant that is precisely what’s under dispute.
Fine. Pastor Wilson actually said the following (see also my response to Jill):
I don’t really care if he meant it or not. The fact that he said it is a problem.
Jonathan, it looks like you need gainful employment. Too much vein posting. Let me know if I can help secure you a vocation.
“Too much vein posting”
Probably practicing for A&P…
Re. The MMA video:
A flop, then a BOP!
Wow!!
Call an ambulance, but not for me?
The UFC fight gif was no false witness. After the KO the winner went to the ground in pain from that body shot. He was hurt. He just had enough left in the tank to time his opponent perfectly.
Has anybody seen Katecho recently? I hardly read most of the comments anymore, but I usually scan for them, and I can’t remember the last time I spotted his name.
He commented once last week I believe.
Thanks.
Will there be NQN merch this year?